Angel War (plot)/Erin version
There is one, no, two things I hate more than humans – traitors and seals. It turned out that a venturing out on a solitaire hunt far away from home would take me way to close to these three things during far too long time. Shouldn’t a demon be able to walk safe from humans in uninhabited forests? “Hold her!” “Easy for you to say! Use the anchorings!” “Whoops – she bites!” I interfere again. There is a slight detail I’ve forgot to mention. The voices that I’ve read up on belonged to humans. Demon hunters, but the brighter ones of you perhaps already guessed that far? Demon hunters equipped with chains, with a hand-sized hook in one end and a metal weight in the other. The three who talked were young, barely twenty years of age, but there were two elders as well, all of them female. I am not going to describe the battle followed any closer. Not because it was in any way more unpleasant than any other battle in it self, but because it’s embarrassing. I still have nightmares of how a sinewy human holds on to my left arm as she carves the forced contract into my skin. That is, if I had had any nightmares. But I don’t. Nightmares are a human incapacity to handle reality. In any case I was chained to the spot with two hooks, one through the shoulder, the other one somewhere close to my kidney. Personally I would have preferred if the later had been placed in the vicinity of the pelvic bone, I have less tactility there than in my kidney. Two of the three young women held me against a tree. The third held a sword. The sword was stuck in a tree. Between the tree and the cross-guard was I, or at least my abdomen. It was not a well-honed sword; I liked it even less than the hooks. I am nowadays convinced that it was deliberate. These humans are raised to be cruel enough to bring along a really blunt and rusty sword if they have the possibility. Just for fun. As stated, one of the senior women held my left arm and carved out the contract. The other woman (I remember her the best, since I saw her face straight from the front during this episode and three scars of clearly varying age and depth) informed me of what privileges I no longer had. “You may no longer hunt, eat or threaten humans.” What a surprise “You may not follow your own will or act on your own except to promote the will of demon hunters, magicians or our royal family.” “All at once?” I can’t be accused for sounding curious. Right then I wasn’t in my best mood, not even for a really bad day. “There is a certain order of priority, and a clear connection. Don’t worry; this seal is just the first layer. Later a higher magician will put a curse on you so you won’t even have to think of it. You won’t be able to break our rules, even if you would like to… “ She paused a slight moment ”misapprehend our contract.” As soon as she got as far as to “curse” I started to fight again, in pure panic. With some good will, you can misunderstand a contract and get away without really breaking it – but curses are as inexorable as death. And they never cease before life for that matter. When the woman got as far as to “would like” my bowels – and my kidney – were in a miserable state. Most likely that was the reason for the woman to pause. Unfortunately it was too late, it was too late from the start. The contract was done, spidery text in am extinct language had been carved into my skin with a sharp knife and rubbed with sand to prevent the scars from healing properly. Few know, but actually any language at all that is not spoken in any country is legit for a contract. Now when I no longer had the right to do what the shades I wanted, but was some kind of public property, the women made sure to pick out the different metal objects and dump me on the ground. They obviously had a great time watching my wounds heal, in particular where the tunic had been torn over one breast. What can I say, no solder is prudish, otherwise it wouldn’t be a soldier. It had been more shame in being defeated by brats that couldn’t as much as see a nipple without blushing. Before I had gathered myself into something that resembled mental stability, where a thought could be conceived in a beginning, middle and end, I had been thoroughly evaluated in terms of colour, shape, firmness, and how much this was worth as a feature. To be treaded like cattle had been far worse if I had not since early age been taught that humans are far below animals (not to mention demons) on the evolutionary ladder. This was clearly creatures with no soul whatsoever and therefore I had no reason to listen until they had anything of importance to say. I expected something in the line of “kill this person” or “protect this person”. Then one of them came and offered to patch up the hole in my clothes. I stared at her. It was the woman with the scars again. “What for something you said?” ”I said, I have a needle and thread with me, and some things of my own that needs to be repaired. Further north is a high river. We are going to make our night stop there for stock overview and general washing. We’ll clean the blood off, from you and the dress, and then I stitch up the worst.” I scrutinized her from top to the bottom, or at least from head to boot. All humans look the same to me; they simply don’t live long enough to develop character features. Wrinkles don’t count, in my eyes they have always looked like some kind of disease that indicates that the human is close to dying. I can see a human’s age, hair colour and skin colour. But aura, charisma and soul is wasted on these creatures. Her hair seemed to be braided, and covered with some kind of mud that hid the colour except by the roots. It was black, or rather very dark brown. The face was, as previously repeated, scarred. The oldest wound was also the longest, stretching from the back of her nose to the jaw, albeit somewhat irregular. The deepest scar crossed the first one over the cheek; maybe the wound had gone all the way into the mouth? In any case, it wasn’t longer than merely a thumb. The last scar was positioned on the opposite side of the face, the right side, and went from the eyebrow to the cheek. Obviously the eye had been seated too deep to be damaged, but it had an interesting split effect on the eyebrow. The rest of her body was wiry, not notably muscular, but surely with enough stamina to compensate. The breasts were covered by armor plates, and were surely wrapped with cloth under the simple tunic. The hands were callused, rough and dry but above all; they were adapted to her life. Suddenly she snapped her fingers in front of my face, making my wings twitch by instinct. ”Hey demon, before you start enjoying the view you could tell me your name and where you come from.” “There have to be a stupid human to ask in stead of ordering a hired.” ”How old are you pretty?” ”One hundred and fifty years, give or take a decade or two. Shouldn’t all demons be beautiful in front of the failure of evolution?” ”You mean a mirror? Listen, to me all demons look alike, except some have breasts and other have boyfriends.” I frowned before I could stop myself. Not because the joke was funny, this was before they found out that all demons were bisexual by nature, but just because I had thought the same things about humans. Of course, few humans can see the soul, will or aura of the eye. Naturally, a people were 9 out of 10 pure blooded individuals have the same skin-, hair- and eyecolour must be confusing to them. ”My name is Lamashtu, I come from the clan of Ashigori.” The woman made a low whistle. “We usually send suicide squads there to clean up from time to time, unless I remember wrong. My name is corporal Erin, and you will be helping me with something sweetie. One of the big ones in the army have a plan that involve you.”